By the Grace of Primus
by Dragon Star Empress
Summary: Armada: When Alexis finds out Starscream may have survived she and her aunt head to Cybertron to save him and give him a second chance at a peaceful life.
1. Chapter 1

The dream at the beginning is actually a dream I had which turned into this story, quite a few of my stories start off as dreams which seems to be a good thing one turned into one of my favorite stories that I've written and another turned into my most popular story, so now it's time to see how this one turns out.

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><p>Grace looked up at what appeared to be some type of giant robot that seemed to be partially grown into the wall of a cave of some type. It was horribly mangled with large sections of metal apparently torn off of it, what metal remained was covered in cracks. As she took a step closer its eyes suddenly glowed dim white and looked at her, causing her to take a startled step back. The eyes didn't seem like those of a mindless machine, but a living sentient being. As she continued to stare into its eyes, she was again startled when it spoke to her.<p>

"I'm not dead, please help me. Tell Alexis, I'm not dead, trapped in Unicron." He said weakly.

Grace was about to ask him who he was and how he knew Alexis when her alarm clock started buzzing.

With a shaking hand Grace turned off the alarm then looked at the green stone pendent she had offered to take when her older sister, Cathy, had said she was going to throw it out couple weeks earlier.

No one was sure where Alexis had gotten it from, only that she had had it with her when she returned home after having disappeared for a few weeks. She refused to tell anyone where she had been or what had happened, but seemed horribly depressed and according to Cathy she would often start crying while holding the pendent. So deciding it must be bringing back some horrible memory Cathy had decided to get rid of it when Alexis had forgotten to put it on before leaving for school one day. Grace had been visiting that day and had offered to take it until they found out exactly what had happened and why it upset Alexis so much as she didn't think it was right to simply get rid of it when they had no idea why it meant so much to Alexis. A few nights after taking it she had started dreaming about the robot. The dreams were always similar with the robot seeming to be woken by her presence and asking for help and usually mentioning something called Unicron and Alexis.

By that afternoon Grace had decided to tell Alexis about the dreams when she stopped by after school. It seemed crazy, but she was sure they had something to do with the necklace and Alexis's disappearance.

"Hey aunt Grace. What do you need me to do today?" Alexis asked as she walked into the antique shop Grace ran.

Ever since returning Alexis had been doing everything possible to keep herself busy, including working at Grace's shop after school.

"Alexis, I need to talk to you about what happened while you were gone." Grace said softly, knowing no one else had been able to get the girl to talk about it and doubting she would have any better luck, but she still had to try.

"Look if mom put you up to this just stop now. I already told her I don't want to talk about it. She's already making it harder on me." She said angrily as she absently reached to her neck where the pendent should have been, "You're the only person I can be around who doesn't try to make me talk about it, please just don't ask about it." She said sounding desperate and on the verge of tears.

Grace walked over to her and pulled her into a comforting hug, "I know you don't want to talk about it, but I need to know about that pendent you had when you came back."

"Why, it doesn't matter anymore, mom got rid of it." Alexis said fighting back tears.

"How about you tell me about it and you can have it back while you're here?" Grace asked.

Alexis's head shot up to look at Grace's face, "You have it? Mom didn't throw it out?" she asked hopefully.

"She told me what she was going to do and I didn't think it was right, so I told her I would hang on to it until you told us what happened to you." Grace replied.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you the truth, I wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen them myself." Alexis told her.

"Them?" Grace asked her heart starting to beat a little faster at the thought that maybe her impression that the thing in her dream had been a living being wasn't as impossible as she had thought.

"You won't believe me. Please just let me have the stone back." Alexis said quietly.

"Just tell me one thing and if it sounds as crazy to you as it sounds to me then I'll give you the pendent and won't bring it up again, okay?" Grace asked.

"I don't know, what is it you want to know?" Alexis asked hesitantly.

"Does this have anything to do with a giant robot with plane wings?" Grace asked and knew instantly what the answer would be when tears sprung from Alexis's eyes and she grew pale.

"How do you know about him?" Alexis asked trying to wipe away the tears that were streaming down her face.

Hands shaking Grace took Alexis's own shaking hands in hers, "A few nights after your mother gave me that pendent I started dreaming about him. He keeps asking for help and saying he's alive and something about being trapped in something called Unicron, he keeps asking me to tell you. Alexis what is going on?" Who and what is the thing I keep dreaming about and why am I dreaming about him?" Grace asked.

"He's the one who gave me the stone, maybe he's able to communicate through it somehow, I always felt like it was connected to him. Maybe since you had it, he had to communicate with you." Alexis suggested.

"Okay and what exactly is he and how do you know him?" Grace asked.

Sighing Alexis began to tell Grace about the Autobots and what had happened since she had met them.

Once she had finished Grace sat in silence for a moment letting it all sink in then said, "No wonder you didn't think anyone would believe you, you were right, I believe you, but even after having those dreams it's still hard to believe." Grace said. "So you said that scooter you have is one of those Mini-Con things?" Grace asked.

"Yeah, do you want to meet her?" Alexis asked.

"Sure." Grace replied, hoping she was really ready for whatever happened next.

Alexis ran outside and a minute later pulled her scooter into the shop, a second later it started to pull apart and shift until it had transformed into a robot about the same height as Alexis.

Grace stared at it in shock for a moment then a little uncertainly said, "Uh, hi, I'm Grace."

The Mini-Con made a few beeping noises then haltingly said, "I Sureshock." And held its hand out.

Grace smiled and hesitantly shook its hand and was a little surprised that instead of being cold metal it was warm. "It's nice to meet you." She said.

"She's just starting to learn English." A male voice said from behind Grace.

Grace spun around to find another Mini-Con standing behind her, this one was red and black.

Sureshock started beeping at the other for a minute until Alexis rested her hand on her shoulder.

"What is going on and where did the second one come from?" Grace asked.

"Well, Sureshock was just pointing out that they weren't originally supposed to be able to speak our language. Swindle is just better at it because Starscream liked the language and started teaching him before anyone else even realized the Mini-Cons could speak English or any earth languages, so Swindle likes to show off a little." Alexis explained.

"Okay and how did he get here?" Grace asked indicating Swindle.

"Do you remember that little race car I asked if you could keep here for me shortly after I got home?" Alexis asked.

"The one your parents wouldn't let you keep?"

"Yeah, that was Swindle, he was just as depressed about thinking Starscream was dead as I was and he just wanted sometime to himself without anyone bothering him, so he came back when Sureshock decided to come back to earth. Then when my parents said we didn't have room to keep him at our house we figured he would be alright with you since you had the room, didn't mind and it's usually quiet around here." Alexis explained.

"So I've had a robot hiding in my storage room for the last couple of weeks?" Grace asked a little disturbed by the thought of having someone in her shop without her knowing about it.

"Yeah, you don't mind do you? I mean he can keep staying here until we find out if Starscream is really still alive, can't he?" Alexis asked.

"I guess so." Grace replied, "He can move into one of the empty apartments upstairs, I'm sure that would be more comfortable than being stuck in the dusty storage room."

"Thank you, but we should contact the Autobots and see what we can find out about Starscream before making any other plans." Swindle said.

"Okay and how do we do that?" Grace asked.

"We have to go to the Autobot's old base and contact them from there, our internal comlinks aren't strong enough to reach them." Swindle replied.

"Is the base near here?" Grace asked.

"Yeah, it's just outside of town, I'll show you where it is." Alexis replied.

"Alright, help me close up the shop and we'll head out there." Grace told her.


	2. Chapter 2

This will probably be the last story I update for a while, I'll be staying with my grandparents for the weekend, I can only get online using their computer while I'm there. Then I'll only be home for a few hours on Monday before leaving to stay at my great grandfather's farm with my aunt and uncle, they have no internet access at all and I'm not sure how long I'll be staying with them, last time I stayed about two weeks. But it means I'll have quite a bit of time to focus on my writing and should have new chapters for several of my stories ready to post when I get home.

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><p>"This place is huge." Grace said as they walked through the Autobot's base.<p>

"Yeah, I guess it is, it never really felt so big when everyone was here, but now that it's empty it does seem really big and empty." Alexis said as they entered the main control room and she started pushing buttons.

A moment later a large screen lit up that showed a large empty looking room, "Earth to Cybertron, is anyone there?" Alexis said.

"Hey Alexis, how are you doing?" Hot Shot said as he appeared on the screen.

"Okay, but there's some weird stuff happening and, I think Starscream might still be alive." Alexis told him.

"What makes you think that?" Hot Shot asked.

After Alexis briefly explained the situation to Hot Shot he said he'd get Red Alert and they would be there shortly.

"So how long is shortly when they're coming from another planet?" Grace asked.

"Probably just a few minutes, they have this warp gate that hey can use to pop from one place to another really quickly, that's how they brought us home." Alexis explained.

"Okay." Grace said not feeling entirely sure she was ready to meet face to face with giant alien robots.

A few minutes later a red ball of light appeared in the middle of the room then dissipated to reveal two robots.

"You didn't say you had brought anyone with you, I take it this is you're aunt?" Hot Shot asked.

"Yeah, this is my aunt Grace." Alexis said then turned to Grace, "This is Hot Shot and Red Alert." she told her.

"Uh, nice to meet you." Grace said trying not to sound nervous.

"It's nice to meet you too." Hot Shot said smiling as he knelt down and held out one finger.

Grace relaxed a little and shook his finger, "Don't worry, we won't hurt you." he assured her.

"Now tell me exactly what has been happening." Red Alert said.

After hearing everything that had been happening and looking at the crystal Red Alert told them, "I think what you have here is a type of very rare crystal. When one crystal is broken into multiple parts whoever has those pieces can communicate with anyone else who has pieces of the same crystal, sort of like our com-links. It seems it works differently with humans since he's only been able to communicate with you when you're asleep, but I'd say that's what this has to be and he still had part of the crystal with him."

"But do you think he's really still alive?" Alexis asked.

"I don't know, from what Optimus told us about what happened to him it doesn't seem likely, but I suppose it's not impossible. Could I see the crystal?" Red Alert asked.

"Here." Alexis said removing the crystal from her neck and handing it to him.

"Amazing, he is still alive, I can communicate with him, but he sounds really out of it, like he's barely managing to stay conscious, he's fading in and out. We need to find him right away." Red Alert told them.

"I'm coming with you." Alexis said.

"I'm coming too then, I'm not letting you go alone." Grace told her.

"I'll be fine." Alexis replied.

"I'm too involved in this now to not see what happens, anyways you can't just disappear again, you're mother would never let you out of the house again if that happened." Grace said.

"What good would you coming along do?" Alexis asked.

Grace just grinned at her as she pulled out her cell phone and dialed it, "Hi Cathy, would you mind if Alexis stayed with me for the weekend? I thought I'd take her camping with me and see if I can get her to talk to me about what happened to her."

"Of course I'll let you know if she does."

"Great, we'll see you Sunday evening." she said then hung up, "Okay, we have until Sunday evening to be home." Grace told them.

"Thank you!" Alexis said hugging her, "Now let's get going."

"I don't remember ever agreeing to let you two come along." Hot Shot said then smiled, "But you're right, let's get going."

An hour later after gathering a few supplies and space suits for Alexis and Grace they arrived on Cybertron, found a ship and headed for Unicron.

"That thing is a robot?" Grace asked looking out the window.

"Yeah, but don't worry, he's either dormant or dead, there's nothing to worry about." Hot Shot assured her.

"And I thought you guys were big, I can't believe you brought my niece up here with that thing."

"They didn't know about Unicron when we left and the Mini-Cons wouldn't let them leave without us." Alexis told her.

"I'm starting to see why you never told anyone about this, not only would they have not believed you, if you're mom had believed you she would have totally freaked out." Grace said.

A little while later the ship landed on Unicron, Red Alert grabbed a box of medical supplies and they headed out.

"The signal is weak, but I think he's this way." Red Alert told them as they headed down a long dark tunnel.

"Um, aunt Grace, it really isn't that dangerous, we'll be fine, you don't have to hold my hand and be all protective." Alexis said.

"We're walking around inside a giant robot and if anything happens to you your mother will kill me. From what you've told me about this thing, I think I have a right to be a little protective." Grace said maintaining her position holding Alexis's hand while walking slightly in front of her and constantly glancing around for any sign of danger.

Several minutes later they stepped around a corner and into the same area Grace had seen in her dreams. Red Alert walked over to where Starscream was, "Starscream, can you hear me?" he asked lightly touching his arm then jumped back as it crumbled apart.

"He has to be alive, he has to be alive." Alexis whispered to her self and Grace wrapped a comforting arm around her.

"Is he alive?" Grace asked.

"His body is completely destroyed, but I'm still getting faint readings from his spark, he's alive, but just barely." Red Alert told them as he pulled out some tools and a round container and opened it, "If I can get his spark out without damaging it, he might have a chance."

After several tense minutes Red Alert got Starscream's dimly glowing spark into the container then picked up something that fallen as he was getting it out, "That's why he was able to communicate with you even in his weakened state, he had the other piece of the crystal stored in a compartment right next to his spark." he told them, handing the crystal to Alexis, "Let's go, I need to get this hooked up to an energy supply right away, it's a miracle he's lasted this long." Red Alert told them as he packed up his supplies and they headed back to the ship.

Once they arrived back on Cybertron Red Alert placed Starscream's spark in a container with wires running into it and it immediately started to glow brighter.

"Is he going to be alright now?" Alexis asked.

"I believe so, his spark is weak, but now that it has an energy source he should recover, it may take a day or two though." Red Alert told them.

Alexis turned and hugged Grace who had been standing next to her, "Thank you so much for not letting mom throw the crystal away and helping me get here and everything, you probably saved his life." she said tears starting to run down her cheeks.

"I never thought I'd save someone's life just by doing that, but you know I'd do anything for you." Grace told her then looked up at Red Alert, "What happens now? What about his body?" she asked.

"It will take some time to build him a new body, but until then we have smaller emergency bodies that can be used temporarily." Red Alert told her.

"How small?" Alexis asked.

"About the size of a human." Red Alert replied.

"Oh that will be so cool to be able to hang out with him and be the same size." Alexis said.

"It's going to be your job to convince him of that, from what I've heard and seen it takes a while to get use to and can be a little scary for a bot to suddenly be that small with everyone else towering over them. Usually gives them a great deal more respect for the Mini-Cons though." he told them.

"So how about a tour of Cybertron while we wait for Starscream to recover? We've made a lot of progress on the repairs since you were last here and I'm sure Grace would like to see more." Hot Shot asked.

"I guess we could." Alexis said hesitantly, glancing back at Starscream's spark.

"We can stay here if you want to, I'm sure I'll get a chance to look around eventually." Grace said.

"Don't worry, Red Alert will take good care of him and I will stay here." Swindle told her.

"Okay, you're right, let's go." Alexis said.

"You're sure?" Grace asked as they started to leave the room.

"Yeah, Hot Shot is right and staying won't really do any good, at least this way I'll be distracted and not worry so much." Alexis replied.

The rest of the day flew by as Grace was shown around Cybertron and introduced to some of the other Autobots. That evening after checking to see if there had been any changes with Starscream Alexis and Grace were shown to a room that had been set up for when the kids came to visit. It was fairly plain with metal walls, two beds, a small night stand between them with a few drawers and a small bathroom, but the large window that gave a nice view of the Cybertronian town they were in and the large skylight that gave a spectacular view of the stars more than made up for the rooms plainness.

"So tell me more about Starscream, you said he was a Decepticon and they were the bad guys, but you ended up becoming friends with him, right?' Grace asked as they settled in for bed.

"Yeah, he wasn't really that bad like the other Decepticons though. He joined the Autobots for a while and that's when I got to know him, he didn't get along too well with the Autobots, but he warmed up to the others and me pretty quickly. Then he switched sides again and went back to the Decepticons, but I think he regretted it and only did it because he thought he'd have a better chance of killing Megatron that way and thought that he'd never really be able to get along with the Autobots. I'm sure if he had had a little more time with them things would have worked out though. Even after he went back to the Decepticons he kept doing things to help the Autobots, although I don't think anyone else ever realized that. He just seemed so confused about where he belonged and didn't seem to trust himself after he left the Autobots. Then he nearly got himself killed to stop the fighting and got Megatron to join the fight against Unicron." Alexis told her, tears starting to fall from her eyes.

"It sounds like you really cared about him a lot, now I understand why you've been so upset thinking he was dead since you got home." Grace said.

"Yeah, he was like the big brother I had always wished for, even after he left the Autobots I always believed he would come back." Alexis told her.

"Hopefully now that the war is over he'll stick around." Grace said then chuckled, "Do you remember Christmas when you were six and seven?" she asked.

"When I asked mom and dad for a big brother for Christmas?" Alexis asked.

"Yep, and when they didn't get you one, the next year you told everyone that they hadn't gotten you what you really wanted so all you were going to ask for was a big brother for Christmas and nothing else, it made it so hard to figure out what to get you. I guess you finally got what you wanted."

"Yeah, I've always able to count on you to get me what I asked for instead of clothes or other stuff." Alexis said.

"What do you mean?" Grace asked, a little confused as to what that had to do with Starscream.

"If it weren't for you saving my necklace and telling me about the dreams you were having Starscream would have died before anyone knew he had still been alive, so in a way you gave me back the big brother I had always wanted and thought I had lost." Alexis told her.

Early the next morning Alexis and Grace went to check on Starscream, "How is he doing?" Alexis asked as they walked into the room.

"Very well, I should be able to move him into a protoform in the next few hours." Red Alert replied.

"What is a protoform?" Grace asked.

"It's a smaller basic version of our bodies that a spark can be placed in to, once the spark is put into it, the armor will be formatted to match what the bot originally looked like." Red Alert explained.

"While you wait for that, how would you two like an aerial tour of the planet?" Hot Shot asked.

"That would be wonderful." Grace said as she and Alexis followed Hot Shot outside.

"This is Thundercracker and Skywarp, they'll be taking you, you'll be able to talk to each other through their radio system." Hot Shot told them as he introduced them to two winged transformers, one mostly blue and the other mostly a dark purple.

"It's nice to meet you." Thundercracker said before they both transformed and Hot Shot helped Grace into him then helped Alexis into Skywarp.

"Be careful with them, humans can be fragile." Hot Shot warned them.

"Don't worry, we'll take good care of them." Skywarp said then they took off.

"So which side were you two on back during the war?" Grace asked after a while.

"Neither, we were neutrals, lived in a neutral town until our parents died then a neighbor took us in and moved us to a hidden underground bunker. There were only few there when we first went there, but by the time the war ended there were a couple hundred of us. It just wasn't safe for neutrals above ground any more, if you wouldn't fight with the Decepticons it didn't matter if you were a neutral or an Autobot, they'd kill you either way." Thundercracker told her.

They talked for a while about the war and what it had been like as well as about the different sites they few over. Then they got a message from Red Alert asking them to come back to the base.

After thanking Thundercracker and Skywarp for the tour Alexis raced into the base, "Slow down, what if someone comes around a corner and steps on you?" Grace called after her.

Alexis reluctantly slowed down, "I just want to get there, Red Alert didn't say why we needed to come back, what if something went wrong?"

"Don't worry, I'm sure everything is fine." Grace reassured her as she caught up to her.

A few minutes later they walked into the med bay, "Is everything alright?" Alexis asked.

"Yes, everything is fine." Red Alert replied.

"Fine? You call this fine? I'm almost as small as a mini-con, this is anything but fine." a voice said.

Grace and Alexis turned to find Starscream standing over to one side of the room not looking very happy with the situation. He was taller than the mini-cons, but probably not quite six feet tall, his paint job had returned to it's original red, he no longer had the long wings or other things associated with his earth alt mode and looked pretty much the same as he had when the kids had first seen him.

"Starscream!" Alexis cried out running over and hugging him, "It's so good to have you back, we all thought you were dead." she said letting him go.

"I guess it is good to still be alive." he said, "But I don't want anyone to know I'm still alive until I have decent body." he added.

"You look fine to me, although you do look different than the last time I saw you." Grace said.

"Well I don't want anyone to see me this small, I'd just get harassed and made fun of." Starscream said then asked, "Who are you anyways?"

"My name is Grace, Alexis is my niece." Grace told him.

"You're the one I saw when I was trying to communicate with Alexis, why did you take the crystal from her?" he demanded sounding a little angry.

"She didn't take it from me, my mom did, she was going to throw it out, but aunt Grace stopped her and took the crystal to keep it safe. If it weren't for her we never would have found out you were still alive." Alexis quickly explained.

"Oh, well, thank you then for helping get me out of Unicron." Starscream said.

"You're welcome." Grace said.

"Now that you're all introduced, we need to figure out what to do with him." Red Alert said, "You can't stay here, I don't need you getting in my way, so someone else is going to have to find out about you because we have to find you a place to stay."

"It shouldn't take too long to create a new body for me should it?" Starscream asked.

"Normally not more than a week or two, but with all the reconstruction going on around the planet and repairs being made to countless bots who were injured during the war and never properly repaired, we're running low on supplies. It could take a few weeks to a couple months to get everything together that I would need to build a body from scratch." Red Alert told him.

"I know where he can stay without anyone on Cybertron knowing." Swindle said.

"Where?" Starscream asked.

"With Grace, she has room, she offered to let me stay in her building." Swindle replied.

"That would be perfect then I can see you everyday after school." Alexis said excitedly then turned to Grace, "You wouldn't mind would you?" she asked.

"Why not, I've already had one robot hanging out at my place, at least this time I'll know they're there." Grace said.

"Thank you." Alexis said hugging Grace, "This is going to be so great!"


End file.
